India Proves Freedom Is Strong Tie

May 15, 1996

India is a nation of contrasts and diversity.

Hundreds of millions of people live in abject poverty, without even a roof to cover their heads. Yet India, with a population of nearly a billion people has a well-educated middle class that is approaching in size the population of the entire United States.

Religious tensions often cause bloodshed on the subcontinent, but given the vast diversity of religious expression found in India, there obviously is a large measure of tolerance as well.

It's fair to say that no other nation on Earth could have produced as saintly a political leader as Mahatma Gandhi, who led the nation's many factions in a non-violent revolution against the British that in 1947 ended in independence for India.

Last week, India completed an election that resulted in the defeat of the ruling Congress Party and the ouster of Prime Minister P.V. Narashimha Rao, who has led the nation since 1991, when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi ws assissinated.

The make-up of a new government is as yet unclear, although results of the balloting indicate members of India's impoverished lower castes will gain substantial power in a coalition government.

The Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata, which is critical of many of the economic reforms instituted by Rao, has won the largest number of seats in the paliament. But the shift from a socialist to a market economy in India has substantial momentum, and in all probability it will continue.

About 300 million of the 590 million eligible voters went to the polls, a phenomenal number considering the scope of poverty and illiteracy in India.

For years, people have predicted that because of India's religious and regional diversity, it could not survive as a single country. India, however, maintains its enviable position as the world's largest democracy.

India provides an object lesson to the world's autocratic regimes: Give people the right to express themselves, and to participate in choosing their leaders, and they will demonstrate that freedom is a tie that binds.